Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1887-12-04
BOOKS AND GHOST.
MR. PRIME AND his ExPEaIgEoR IN
A LIBRARY
A Weird and uneanny Place-visited BY
Girlish Form-A
Question.

Mr.. Prime writes to the New York
Journal Of Commerce:
No place in the world is more weird,
none more uncanny TO one who Is afraid
of visible ghosts than library wherein
are old books and which has been for
long time closed aud unyisited by the
living. If you cannot appreciate this l
cannot explain 1t to You. One who be-
lieyes in gboslly appearances, the mate
REALIZATION of the immatorial, may well be-
lieve also that dead men have lett parts
OF their souls in the books they left be-
hind them, and that where many such
books are gathered many who wrote
and many others who have read
them would be apt to assemble and
sometimes be materialized into visible
forms.
One day in Nuremberg a bookseller
took me up the grand stairway and along
the open gallery OF an Old house, a very
old patrician residence now occupied by
shops and various artisans, and led me
to large, dimly-lightcd room, where he
had stored n library of ancient folios
which he had recently bought and
wished TO sell lin block IT required
no effort Of the imagination TO see, seated
in the chairs wich stood around. Albert
Durer and Phillip Melancthon and Uric
Narnbuler. and even that fat old villain
Blilbald Pirkheymer, for all were there
in their printed works, except Varnbuler,
and had no doubt he, with the artist
who Logged him, had handled those visi-
BILE, tangible forms in which good men
and great men had caused their thoughts
to be materialized.
Now please to observe, my friend, that
in this there is no nonsense about spirits
appearing IN Opaque bodies ia coats and
trousers, plaid trousers, swallow-tail
coats, or in white robes. Ghost-seors,
those who see veritable ghosts, see also
the ghosts Of garments, and although
most of them come IN white some OF
them ere said TO come in colors Believe
or not as you please. 1t has nothing to
do with the fact which yOu and | know,
and every Que else knows, that magma
ton. as we call it, allied t0and acting with
memory, is forever bringing before our
minds eyes absent things, far-romoyed
landscapes, the music we heard last night
and the music we heard fifty years ago,
sol those who have gone to Europe, or
gone ont Of the whole world. We ought
to have great sympathy and tenderness
toward people who really are AFRAID OF
seeing ghosts. because we oil Of Us come
so very near 10 seeing them all the time
III daylight and dark that it is hard to
define the difference between the
creations Of our imagiRiugs and the
realities they are afraid OF seeing.
There is no one of our senses which
do not deceive us often. There IS
10 possible sensation which the mind
does not deceive itself into imagining
when it has no existence. Some have
said that we can never reproduce an OdOr
in Imagination. Whetherwe can, waking,
is curious subject of speculation. but
that we can when asleep, or half asleep.
] know right well. Who has not dreamed
OF air loaded with fragrance, OF
the fresh smell of the salt sea,
of the odor of incense in some old
church? Do you say you never did so ?
/. often. Surely you have thought
You heard a voice ; words, ut least one
sentence, from lips you know have been
closed many years. Surely You have
felt the breath OF q kiss-thought You
felt ton your check, your forehead,
your lips, though it be years since any
human lips have thus expressed to you
a human affection. Iou have dreamed
such things IN deep sleep III the night
time. Have you never had equally vivid
day dreams? The SUBJECTS inexhausti-
bic, and it is not strange If We ramble
when talking Of it. Nor can one, how
ever unimaginatiye he may be by nature,
gather around him from year TO year
books of old time. possessed for cen
turtles by men or women IN the long pro-
cession Of generations, books which he
knows outside and inside, and has made
his familiar friends-nCr, / say, can such
one possibly fail to have frequent vivid
imaginatons Of the dead authors and
readers of his books. Therefore 1t is
that, on the slightest apparent fact about
book, one will create a host OF i'm
agiued facts. and library is subject TO
ghostly ysitations
1 bad been away almost six months,
and reaching home late at night, went
into my library, where a low fire WAS
burning, Dut no gas was lit, and sat
down, smoking and lonesome. To be
alone in ones house in New York is at
first tenfOld more lonesome than 10 be
solitary in a cabin on the mountain,
three miles from any human hab.tati0n.
In the Gloom stoo a small table. near
my chair. and some books lay on 1t.
For awhile ] watched the dim and very
fantastic appearance Of the smoke OF my
cigar as IL went up into perfect dark
ness, and at length drew the table
toward me, and was about to light the
reading lamp on 1t when I saw ghost
and leaned back in my char to look ut
it Beyond the table stood girlish
form, graceful, leaning forward, with
ewes fixed on the books. Then she
looked up at me. How was she dressed,
did YOU ask nc, madam? That was a
striking feature OF the ghost. Her dress
was almost an exact counterpart al those
worn by two very beautiful young la
die. sisters doubtless, unknown TO me,
whom / saw one evening last summer
entering the dining-r0om at the Profile
House. Not as to material, but as to
effect and form. Probably that had
something TO do with the Imagination,
Tor OF late. without knowing 1t, ladies'
have at times worn costumes closely re-
sembling the sixteenth-ceutury dresses
of Their sex, only they cauaot procure
the rich brocades then made and worn.
Her face? All, there you have me it
was mixture Of dozens OF faces familiar
in German paintings and engrayings,
each one having lett its impre ssion ia
the mind. Beautiful it was. certainly.
Who ever saw the ghost of young girl
of his own calling up which wGs not
lovely? Aud of THIS girl, as she vanish
ed-for she vanished in q moment-I
SAID &" her soul has been in Paradise
three hundred years, and she hes come
to look at that book because 1t was once
dear TO her. ] wonder how often She
has been here this summer"
Before / eft town 1 had received a
package of old books from Europe,
which I bad time only 70 glance at |
he'd left Them lviu~. where thev had now